Aditi Singh Sharma: A rockstar and a songbird

Aditi Singh Sharma , the  vivacious  rockstar with an attitude is a complete entertainer. The  29 year old singer  has slowly but steadily caught the collective imagination of the country as a new-age songbird in Bollywood. Currently, her dance number Saturday Night from the just-released Bangistanis is topping music-charts all over.

Blessed with an unconventional voice which is far from sweet and  velvety, Aditi’s timbre has an unusual power to catch the contemporary style and flavours. To the uninitiated, her sonorous tone made an entry into the industry with filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D.  But how did she grab the plum project?

“It so happened that ace composer Amit Trivedi once spotted me at a gig in Mumbai and asked me to meet him at his studio soon after my performance was over. He asked me to try and sing the scratch version of Yahi meri zindagi. Much to my amazement, the recording was retained as a final take on the playlist. Obviously, I was jubilant at getting a wonderful launch-pad,” she remembers. With that memorable song, Aditi arrived.

The last couple of years has been special for Aditi as she has received recognition, name and fame with back-to-back hits from Agent Vinod (Raabta), Heroine (Main Heroine Hoon),  Gori Tere Pyaar Mein (Dhat Teri Ki), Dhoom 3 (Dhoom Machale Dhoom), Holiday (Blame The Night), 2 States (Offo) Roar (Rubaru) and so on. But 2015 has been  sensational with well-sung numbers like Sooraj Dooba Hain (Ranbir Kapoor-Jacqueline Fernandez starrer Roy) andTouch My Body (Alone featuring Bipasha Basu). Both have been hits with listeners.

Did she always want to be a singer or just stumbled into it?  “Believe me, I’ve been singing since I was a baby in my cradle. They say I never cried when I woke up. Later, I learnt from my mom that she would delay giving me the feed as the entire house would eagerly wait to hear me singing. I guess I was destined to be on stage and in the studio,” Aditi says with a smile.

As to her formal taalim in music, she shares that her mother got her trained in Hindustani classical music when she was just four year old. But that was short-lived since she shifted base with her family to Moscow. “But I am convinced that whatever I had learnt then has indelibly remained with me somewhere deep within,” she feels.
While she never looked back from the time she joined the world of showbiz, Aditi, however, has a backstory as a bandster. “I was part of two bands in the Delhi rock circuit before starting out my Bollywood set-up, ‘Groove Adda’. The first outfit was called Crimson which I had formed with my best friend and talented bassist, Gaurav Balani. Next, I forayed into an already existing troupe titled Level 9, where I hung around for a year after their vocalist left for abroad.” The band excelled with rock pop blues. Incidentally, she was lead singer in both the groups.

Aditi has also doubled up as an occasional keyboardist for a few tracks at Crimson. However, the piano is her favourite instrument. “I still remember when my mom assigned a piano instructor for me while we lived in Moscow, I preferred learning by the ear.”  She  feels that teaching everything by the book often curbs your freedom and natural flair to explore and experiment.

She  agrees that girl-bands in India often fritter away. “Despite loads of talent and inherent passion, most units have remained flashes in the pan for various factors. Perhaps safety is a big concern.” She  recollects being an active member of Delhi’s rockscape but someone would always escort and drop her back home post the late-night schedules. “Almost all concerts kick off after nine o’clock and it’s difficult for any fresher to either avail of a transport or rope in somebody’s company for security, especially if it’s a female artiste,” she concedes.

In a country where gender-specific roles and stereotypes still dominate the general psyche, Aditi feels that even parents often do not provide the much-expected support-system and encouragement to their daughters who wish to chase their long-cherished dreams.

The girl-band scene is not much better the world over, however, Aditi points out.  Although there have been legendary boy bands across the world for ages, yet the only all-women band she can recall from the recent years is Spice Girls.

“I still remember a lot of their chartbusters because I would listen to them nonstop and even formed a band in Moscow alongwith four other girls from my block and guess what, I would sing the parts of Scary Spice ‘Mel B’! Those were the fun days of adolescence,” she reminisces.